The present invention relates in general to a bottom closure restrainment apparatus for a collapsible container apparatus attached to a pallet so as to restrain and retain the position of the bottom flap portions of the container, as attached to the pallet, so as to prevent distortion of the container bottom to, in turn, prevent overall container distortion and/or the migration of materials from within the apparatus to the outside environment when the apparatus is fully deployed and filled.
Pallets have been used for many years by shippers and transporters of various materials. These pallets typically provide a flat and sturdy surface on which materials can be placed and stacked. In order to assure that the materials remain on the pallet, various sized and shaped containers have been attached to the tops of pallets so as to present a bounded area in which to place and/or remove the materials being shipped or stored.
Containers that have been conventionally attached to pallets range from nothing more than four walls and a bottom which utilize the pallet top surface as a support, to more intricate collapsible pallet-container combinations. Most early pallet-container combinations were not collapsible and retained their shape, configuration and dimensions whether in use or not, thereby requiring excess space when stored between uses.
Other configurations of pallet-container combinations allowed for the pallet and container to be formed out of different structural materials, however the extra material required, the extra space required when not in use and the extra costs associated therewith were often prohibitive.
In most prior art pallet-container combinations, the larger the combination is, the less manageable it often becomes. Many such combinations require extensive time and effort to fully deploy the container portion of the combination and provide little, if any retainment of the bottom. There is often a necessity to hold down one portion of the container while attempting to deploy another portion. This arrangement very often necessitates more than one individual to articulate and deploy the container, or conversely to collapse the combination after use.
Further, in such prior art constructions, where the container is attached to the pallet along a lower edge periphery, there often exists gaps between the lower edges of the container and the top surface of the pallet which would allow for the contents within the container to migrate out between the pallet and the lower edges of the container. Alternatively, the bottom is made from separate flap portions which may not be correctly positioned or aligned upon full deployment of the container. In an effort to overcome these undesirable problems, additional flaps must be manually and repetitively deployed to seal the edges and the bottom must be repositioned and held in place thereby requiring further effort, labor costs and time.
Prior art pallet-container combinations include U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,872 to Tusing, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,373,637 to Shippell; U.S. Pat. No. 5,071,010 to Carufel/Zeman; U.S. Pat. No. 4,969,559 to Nederveld.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,949,898 to Nederveld; U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,507 to Delplanque; U.S. Pat. No. 4,880,141 to Gossler, et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,712,687 to Silcott, et al.; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,606,461 to Bolton Sr. While this prior art relates in varying degrees to the present invention, they lack the many advantages of the present invention.
Shippell '367 discloses a pallet-container combination wherein the container portion requires substantial effort to deploy and collapse. Specifically, the bottom flaps 56 and 58 must be manually repositioned during deployment and collapse of the container portion. Furthermore, there are no position alignment features for the bottom flaps--since both bottom flaps are permanently glued to the pallet so as to affect the collapsed profile of the container.
Carufel/Zeman '010; Nederveld '898; Delplanque '507; Gossler '141 Silcott '687; and Bolton Sr. '461 either use the pallet as the actual bottom of the container (without gluing the surface of the bottom flap), have a single flap glued or otherwise fastened to the pallet thereby requiring no alignment or restrainment feature for multiple flaps along the bottom of the container, or simply use no such features at all. The Nederveld '559 and Tusing '872 references, on the other hand do disclose one type of locking feature for the articulateable bottom flaps. However, with such a "keystone" arrangement at the peripheral flap edges only three sides of edge contact are made towards resisting shifting forces, and additional waste material is incurred to form the male tab segment.
It is thus an object of the present invention to create an inexpensive, easy to assemble pallet-container apparatus that can be utilized with a variety of pallets formed into a variety of sizes and out of a variety of materials, having a bottom flap alignment locking feature which improves restraint between two separable flaps while reducing container blank waste.
It is a further object of the invention to provide such a secured container that requires a minimized amount of time and effort, by one individual, to deploy and collapse in only a few operational steps. In so doing, it is an object to achieve automatic prompting towards articulated transition of many of the container's panels and flaps.
An additional object of the invention, is to provide a container portion that has an automatically sealed lower periphery, which is maintained, at least in part, by an efficient bottom closure restrainment feature so as to prevent inadvertent or accidental migration of the contents within the container to the outside environment.
Similarly it is an object to minimize the amount of materials utilized to form such a container and to minimize the overall profile of the container-pallet combination when not in use and fully collapsed.
These and other objects of the invention will become apparent in light of the present specification and drawings.